High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories

by Robertson Davies

  “What’s your beef?” I said.

  It was the girl who shared the horse who replied. “He means that Pope Paul announced last ninth of May that all this lot weren’t really saints any more. Demoted them to legends, you see. A stinking trick, when you consider what they’ve been worth to the Papacy, over the centuries. But he wanted to make places for some Africans, and Americans, and other trendy riffraff. So since then we’ve been racketing all over Christendom trying to find someplace to stay. My name is Cleodolinda, by the way, and I’m not a saint. I just have to travel around with Georgie here because I’m a reminder of his greatest triumph. You remember, when he slew the dragon? I was the girl the dragon was—well, nowadays they call it molesting. Will you take us in? It’s All Saints, today; if we don’t get a home, and a place where we are respected, before midday, it’s Limbo for us, I’m afraid. And Limbo is the absolute end, you know.”

  I liked Cleodolinda. As I listened, her history came back to me. Daughter of the King of Lydia. I’ve always got on well with princesses. But as I looked at that streetful of sanctified hippies and flower-children, my heart misgave me.

  “Why Massey College?” I asked her. “With all the earth to choose from, why have you come here?”

  It was Saint George who answered. He never let Cleodolinda get a word in edgewise. The way he insisted on having all the good lines for himself, you might almost have thought they were married.

  “You need us,” he said, “to balance the extreme, stringent modernity of your thinking; nothing grows old-fashioned so fast as modernity, you know; we’ll keep you in touch with the real world—the world outside time. And we need you, because we want handsome quarters and you have them. It is our intention to set up a Communion of Saints in Exile, and this is the very place to do it. We wouldn’t dream of going to the States, of course. But here in the colonies is just the spot.”

  Cleodolinda saw that I didn’t like Saint George’s tone; she leaned forward and whispered, “He’s begging, you know, really; please let them in.”

  Compassion overcame common sense, and I nodded. Immediately the crowd began to surge forward, and that tiresome girl Saint Catherine shouted “Adeste fideles!” again. I began to dislike her; she reminded me of a girl whose thesis I once supervised; she had the same quality of overwhelming feminine gall.

  “One moment,” I shouted. “It must be understood that if you enter here, I’m running the show. There’ll be no taking over, do you understand? The first rule is, you must keep out of sight. I presume you are all able to remain invisible?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” said Saint George; “but we really must resume physical form for a little while each day. You’ve no idea how cold invisibility is, and most of us are from the East; we have to warm up, every now and then.”

  “Five minutes a day,” I said, “and I don’t want you scampering all over the College. I’ll tell you where to go, and there you must stay. Oh, yes, you may run along to the Chapel daily, but don’t loiter. And no ostentatious miracles without written consent from the House Committee. We have participatory democracy here I’d like you to know, and that means you mayn’t do anything without getting permission from the students. Now, one at a time please, and no shoving.”

  Saint George helped me to check them in, and it was no trifling job. There were about two hundred of them, but the trouble was that they all insisted on bringing what they called their “attributes”—the symbols by which they have been recognized through the ages. Saint Ursula, for instance, brought her eleven thousand virgins with her, and insisted that they were simply personal staff, and only counted as one; they were a dowdy lot of girls, and I sent them to the kitchen, thinking the Chef would probably be able to put them to work. Saint Barbara I packed off to the Printing Room; I thought that brass cannon of hers wouldn’t be noticed among all the old presses down there. Because of his association with travel I sent Saint Christopher to the parking-lot; many College people have remarked that they have never had any trouble finding a space since that moment. Saint Valentine was tiresome; he insisted that he must be free to roam at large through the living quarters, or I would regret it. I mistrusted the look in his eye. Indeed, I quickly realized that all of these saints had a strong negative side to their characters, and could turn ugly at a moment’s notice. So I told Valentine to go where he liked, but that I would hold him responsible for any scandal.

  Saint Lucy seemed a nice little thing, but conversation was made difficult by her trick of carrying her eyes before her on a salver. Still, she was simplicity itself compared with Saint Agatha, who walked up to me, confidently carrying her two severed breasts on a platter; I was so disconcerted that, before I grasped the full implication of my deed, I sent her to the kitchen. I made the same mistake—so full of potentialities for College cannibalism—with Saint Prudentiana, who was carrying a sponge, soaked in some jam-like substance that she insisted was martyr’s blood. I can tell you that after these it was a relief to admit Saint Susanna, who carried nothing more disconcerting than a crown. As for Saint Martin, I recalled that he had once rent his cloak in two, in order to share it with a beggar, so I knew that he had experience in tearing up rags, and sent him down to our Paper-Making Room. Nor was Saint Thomasius a problem: I knew that his knack was for turning water into wine, and I thought he could make himself useful in the bar.

  In fairness I must say that I foresaw certain problems that did not arise. Saint Nicholas, for instance. I was sure he would miss children, but he assured me he did not care if he never saw a child again this side of the Last Judgement; he said he wanted to re-establish himself as what he originally was—a treasurer, an administrator, a dealer in money. I shipped him straight off to the Bursary, and I understand he has since made himself very comfortable in that grandfather’s clock.

  Many of the saints had animals, and these gave me a lot of trouble. Saint Hubert, for instance, had brought a large white stag, which was interesting enough because it bore a blazing cross between its horns; I told him to put it to work cropping the croquet lawn, but not to let it nibble the flowering shrubs. But then there was Saint Euphemia, who had brought a bear, and knowing how bears love to catch fish, I was worried about what Roger would think; we finally made a deal that if the bear would chase those squirrels that eat all our crocus bulbs, it could stay. But the problem presented by these animals is that their powers of invisibility are not under such control as those of their saintly owners, and I don’t want that bear to turn up unexpectedly in—well, for instance, in a quorum of university presidents. You may imagine I was glad to face such easy decisions as that of Saint Dorothy with her basket of fruit and flowers—very handy in the private dining-room. And when Saint Petronilla turned up with her dolphin, I simply gestured her toward the pool.

  Dragons were a perfect nuisance. An otherwise decent fellow named Saint Germanus of Auxerre wanted to bring in a dragon with seven heads. I asked him to wait. But then along came that detestable Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with a very nasty dragon which she insisted was not a dragon at all. “Is a pet, a symbol of all that is evil in my nature, which I have utterly subdued,” she said. But the dragon did not look as subdued as I should have liked, and we had high words. She wanted to have the Round Room all to herself and she wanted a priest always with her; she had some extraordinary plans for examinations: but I insisted that she scramble up the tower, and accommodate herself in our Saint Catharine bell, with her great spiky wheel, and her gigantic Sword of Truth, and her disgusting dragon.

  “But I am patroness of all scholars,” she protested.

  “You’ll see them to great advantage from up there,” I replied, and refused to budge. She went off in a sulk.

  It was with Saint George I had the worst trouble. Not only did he insist on bringing in his horse, but he also had a perfectly frightful dragon with him. I had to put my foot down.

  “But it isn’t a dragon,” he shouted; “it’s a dog. Watch, now. Sit, Rover!” he cried. But the dragon
did not sit. It leapt up at me and snuffled me intimately and licked me, and tore the leg of my pyjamas, and uttered the most horrifying howls. Mind you, this was not wholly surprising. I have known scores of Englishmen who owned nasty, rough, smelly dragons that they insisted were really dogs. But this was too much.

  “That’s no dog,” said I, and gave the dragon a kick in the cloaca. “It’s blowing fire out of its nose. See—it’s scorched a great hole in my dressing-gown.”

  “Of course.” he said, haughtily; “it’s a fire-dog.”

  This was the last straw. “All dragons to the furnace-room immediately,” I shouted. “In the morning Professor Swinton will examine them, and if they are really prehistoric animals, he will take them to the Museum.” They saw I meant it, and the dragons slithered and puffed off down the stairs.

  At last the whole tribe of refugee saints was disposed of about the College somehow, and I was able, in a very slight degree, to recover my composure. But then I saw that Cleodolinda had been left behind. Saint George, a real Englishman, had been so concerned about his dog he had forgotten his girl.

  “Well, young woman, what are we going to do with you?” I said.

  “Oh, I suppose it’s Limbo for me,” she replied in a resigned but not a complaining tone. “I’m only an attribute, you see, not a saint, and as you’ve put Georgie on to help the Porter he won’t have time for me. After all, I can’t hang about the lodge undressed like this.”

  I looked at her. She repaid looking at, but I felt our Massey College men were not quite ready for so much feminine beauty, all at one gaze, so to speak.

  “I don’t like to think of you in Limbo,” said I, “but the College is crammed with your friends and their luggage and pets. So—for a while, anyhow—you may use my guest-room.”

  Never trust a woman. “Oh, you are kind,” she said, and hopped up and down with delight, producing a very agreeable effect. “And you won’t mind if I bring a friend, will you?”

  “It depends,” said I, “a beheaded virgin or something of that kind would be all right, but no young men. I’m expected to set an example.”

  “Well, it’s a man, but not a bit young,” said she. “It’s Saint Patrick, you see. The poor old sweet never thought he would be desanctified, and just when the Pope pronounced his sentence he was in one of the steam baths in Rome, and he hadn’t a minute to pick up a few things, so he hasn’t even an attribute to bless himself with, and—”

  You know how it is. Women always overdo explanations. As Cleodolinda spoke a forlorn figure hobbled forward out of the darkness beyond our gate; a shrivelled little old fellow, covered only by his flowing beard and a very small towel on which was embroidered, in red, Sauna Grande di Roma. He was talking long before Cleodolinda had finished.

  “Yez’ll have pity on me, I know,” he said, “seeing as how I’m a fella-Celt. Sure, amn’t I a Welshman meself? Isn’t it well-known I sailed from Wales to Ireland on a millstone, to convert them heathen? And wouldn’t I have brought the millstone itself if that dirthy ould double-crosser in Rome had give me a minute? But awww, no! It was ‘Out with Saint Path-rick’, and no two ways about it. You’ll notice that Saint Andrew is safe and snug, right where he was. Leave it to the Scotch to get it all their own way. And that roaring ould tough, Saint David is still in his place—aw but I forgot, he’s a Welshman like yourself—I mean like ourselves. Things haven’t been so bad with me since the last Englishman sat on the throne of Peter, and that’s damned near six centuries. You’ve got to let me in. I’m just a poor roont old fella like yourself—”

  Here I noticed Cleodolinda kick him on the shin, and he hastily changed his tactics.

  “I mean to say, a fine young lad, just in the flower of his splendour, like yourself, isn’t going to turn me away, and Limbo gaping before me. You wouldn’t have it on your soul. And you’ve a giant of a soul. I can tell by the kindly light in your eyes.”

  And so on. Much, much more. And the upshot was that I sent him off with Cleodolinda to my guest-room, with strict orders not to manifest themselves in the flesh except when they were safely locked in the bathroom.

  But you know how people are. Especially people who have been used to having their own way (not to speak of adoration and prayers addressed to them) for over a thousand years. It worked for a few days, and then those two were prancing around in there, quite naked, waving to Saint Catharine up in the tower, whistling at the stag, and stirring up the bear by shooting pins at it with an elastic. And the Fellows, as they sit at their breakfast, have been ogling.

  If it is Patrick they see, I presume they take him for a rather more than ordinarily demented visiting professor. But from the light in my young friend’s eye, I have a feeling it is Cleodolinda.

  And now they are in, how shall I ever get them out? Beware of compassion!

  Dickens Digested

  In this, the centenary of his death, I should like to speak well of Charles Dickens; the literary world has united to do him honour as one of the half-dozen foremost geniuses of our great heritage of poetry, drama and the novel. That I should have to stand before you tonight and direct at that Immortal Memory a charge of—the word sticks in my throat, but it must be given voice—a charge of Vampirism, repels and disgusts me, but when Dickens has cast this hateful shadow across the quadrangle of Massey College, I have no other course.

  This is what happened.

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity—in short, it was the beginning of the autumn term, and the year was 1969. I met the incoming group of Junior Fellows, and among the thirty-five or so new men were some who immediately attracted my attention—but the subject of my story was not one of these. No, Tubfast Weatherwax III had nothing about him to draw or hold one’s interest; he was a bland young man, quite unremarkable in appearance. Of course, I was familiar with his dossier, which had been thoroughly examined by the Selections Committee of the College. He came to us from Harvard, and he was a young American of distinguished background—as the dynastic number attached to his name at once made clear. His mother, I know, had been a Boston Winesap. But young Weatherwax bore what one politely assumed to be—in republican terms—a noble heritage lightly, and indeed unobtrusively.

  He was a student of English Literature, and he sought a Ph.D. When I asked him casually what he was working at, he said that he thought perhaps he might do something with Dickens, if he could get hold of anything new. I considered his attitude rather languid, but this is by no means uncommon among students in the English graduate school; hoping to encourage him I said that I was certain that if once Dickens thoroughly took hold of him, he would become absorbed in his subject.

  Ah, fatal prophetic words! Would that I might recall them! But no—I, like poor Tubfast Weatherwax, was a pawn in one of those grim games, not of chance but of destiny, which Fate plays with us in order that we may not grow proud in our pretension to free will.

  I saw no more of him for a few weeks, until one day he came to see me, to enquire about Dickens as a dramatist. I am one of the few men in the University who has troubled to read the plays of Charles Dickens, and relate them to the rest of his work, so this was normal enough. He knew nothing about the nineteenth-century theatre, and I told him I thought Dickens’ drama unlikely to yield a satisfactory thesis to anyone but an enthusiastic specialist. “And you, Mr. Weatherwax,” I said, “did not seem very much caught up in Dickens when last we spoke.”

  His face changed, lightening unmistakably with enthusiasm. “Oh, that’s all in the past,” he said; “it’s just as you said it would be—I feel that Dickens is really taking hold of me!”

  I looked at him more attentively. He had altered since first I saw him. His dress, formerly that elegant disarray that marks the Harvard man—the carefully shabby corduroy trousers, the rumpled but not absolutely dirty shirt, the necktie worn very low and tight around the loins, in li
eu of a belt—had been changed to extremely tight striped trousers, a tight-waisted jacket with flaring skirts, and around the throat what used to be called, a hundred and fifty years ago, a Belcher neckerchief. And—was I mistaken, or was that shadow upon his cheeks merely the unshavenness which is now so much the fashion, or might it be the first, faint dawning of a pair of sidewhiskers? But I made no comment, and after he had gone I thought no more about the matter.

  Not, that is, until the Christmas Dance.

  There are many here who remember our Christmas Dance in 1969. It was a delightful affair, and, as always the dress worn by the College men and their guests ran through the spectrum of modern university elegance. I myself always wear formal evening clothes on these occasions; it is expected of me; of what use is an Establishment figure if he does not look like an Establishment figure? But somewhat to my chagrin I found myself outdone in formality, and by none other than Tubfast Weatherwax III. And yet—was this the ultimate in modern fashion, or was it a kind of fancy dress? His bottle green tail coat, so tight-waisted, so spiky-tailed, so very high in the velvet collar and so sloping in the shoulders; his waistcoat of garnet velvet, hung all over with watch-chains and seals depending from fobs; his wondrously frilled shirt, and the very high starched neck-cloth that came up almost to his mouth; his skin-tight trousers, and—could it be? yes, it certainly was—his varnished evening shoes, were in the perfection of the mode of 1836, a date which—it just flashed through my mind—marked the first appearance of Pickwick Papers. And his hair—so richly curled, so heaped upon his head! And his side-whiskers, now exquisite parentheses enclosing the subordinate clause which was his innocent face. It was—yes, it was certainly clear that Tubfast Weatherwax III had got himself up to look like the famous portrait of the young Dickens by Daniel Maclise.